Photographic materials often contain filter dyes to absorb light from different regions of the spectrum, such as red, blue, green, ultraviolet, and infrared, to name a few. These filter dyes are often required to perform the function of absorbing light during exposure of the material so as to prevent or at least inhibit light of a region of the spectrum from reaching at least one of the radiation-sensitive layers of the element.
After processing of the element, however, the continued presence of the filter dye will adversely affect the image quality of the photographic material. It is therefore desirable to use filter dyes that will be solubilized and removed or at least decolorized during photographic processing. Dyes that are easily solubilized, however, tend to wander throughout the photographic material during coating, adversely affecting the final image quality.
To prevent dye wandering, the dyes are often coated with a mordant to bind the dye in the layer in which it is coated. Dye mordants, while often useful, tend to either bind the dye too strongly, inhibiting solubilization of the dye during photographic processing, or too weakly, thus not preventing dye wandering.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,420,555 describes phenylsulfonamido substituted benzoyl acetonitrile arylidene yellow filter dyes dispersed in polymeric latex particles that are useful as yellow filter dyes in photographic elements. It is still desirable, however, to provide filter dyes that have even greater effectiveness at filtering light in photographic elements.
It would therefore be highly desirable to provide a filter dye for use in photographic elements that does not wander during coating, is fully solubilized during processing, does not require a mordant or latex particles &o incorporate it in a layer of a photographic element, and is decolorized on processing.